Microsoft Corp.
co-founder
Bill Gates
said meeting with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was a “huge mistake” in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper Wednesday.
Mr. Gates said he had several dinners with Mr. Epstein to discuss global health philanthropy, hoping his connections could help raise billions.
“When it looked like that wasn’t a real thing, that relationship ended,” said Mr. Gates during the “Anderson Cooper 360” program. “It was a huge mistake to spend time with him, to give him the credibility of being there.”
A spokeswoman for Mr. Gates said in 2019 he regretted meeting with Mr. Epstein, who died in jail in August 2019, awaiting trial on federal charges related to sex trafficking. In a September 2019 interview with The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Gates said he met Mr. Epstein but “didn’t have any business relationship or friendship with him” and wasn’t aware of any donations from him.
Bill Gates said he met with Jeffrey Epstein to discuss global health philanthropy.
Photo:
Rick Friedman/ Corbis/ Getty Images
The CNN interview comes two days after Bill and
Melinda French Gates
completed their divorce. The Journal previously reported Ms. French Gates was concerned by her former husband’s meetings with Mr. Epstein, with her concerns dating as far back as 2013. Mr. Gates didn’t respond directly to questions from Mr. Cooper about those reports from the Journal and the
New York Times.
Mr. Gates called the divorce being completed “a very sad milestone,” and praised his ex-wife. “Melinda is a great person, and that partnership that we had coming to an end is a source of great personal sadness,” he said.
Bill and Melinda French Gates plan to continue to co-chair and remain as trustees to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Photo:
pearl gabel/Reuters
The former couple plans to continue to co-chair and remain as trustees to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the philanthropic organization they lead together targeting poverty, inequity and disease world-wide. The organization said last month it has a plan in place if the two leaders cannot work together after two years.
Mr. Gates also spoke about the state of the pandemic. He said the vaccines were more effective than he had expected—but expressed concerns over lower vaccination rates and the highly transmissible Delta variant that are spurring a new surge in Covid-19 infections and hospitalizations in the U.S.
“We’re seeing, sadly, you know, a bump here that if we don’t get the mask wearing back in the right places and don’t get the vaccine levels up, we’re going to have quite a wave in the fall, and that’s a disappointment,” Mr. Gates said.
Write to Jennifer Calfas at [email protected]
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